


Watching

by Leigh Jackwood (Leigh_Jackwood)



Series: The Things I Do [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Empire, F/M, Inter-trilogies, One-Shot, thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 05:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/647228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leigh_Jackwood/pseuds/Leigh%20Jackwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He follows her steps, ready to protect her from danger as she watches the girl from a distance. He wonders why she refuses to visit the boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching

 

** Watching **

****

**  
Set around the same time as Thinking.**

**... ...**

**  
**

He walks along behind her, his eyes scanning every corner for a white helmet. For his own face. He knows he doesn't need to, that she could deal with any threat here. Alderaan was safe after all and she could sense danger before he would see it.

That doesn't stop him doing his best. His best, wasn't good enough before but he swears it will be good enough if ever it is needed. He would die for her. Except that then she would be alone and that quite possibly would be worse than seeing her die. Alone to watch over the little girl in plaits trying the patience of her tutor by the fountain. Alone to search for rumours, whispers of her friends. Alone when she found nothing but graves, bodies or shades.

He halts when she does, catching sight of the pained smile she wears. Her hair is unnaturally dark, her face more angular than it has any right to be. She is still beautiful, but her smile isn't as radiant, her eyes don't light up anymore. Not like they used to.

He remembers a time when she would laugh at the face of an approaching army, throw snowballs at her fellow commanders before the fighting began. He remembers her teaching him to dance, her innocent grin as she bumped him into tables on purpose. Then he sees His face, smiling but clouded over with something he at the time didn't understand. She would look back at Him and laugh, spinning around so that they all fell over together. He remembers how she used to look at Anakin, plotting something with him in a corner, acting much younger than she was and well below her station. He had fallen foul of their pranks too many times to trust that sweet grin they both had.

She doesn't smile anymore, not properly. He was pretty sure Anakin didn't throw buckets of water over sleeping generals anymore either. She didn't dance either, or bump into people. It had been five years and he hadn't heard her laugh once. Even when the girl they watched was startled by a squirrel and pushed her tutor into the fountain. She only curved her mouth into something resembling a smile. It never reaches her eyes, they stay cold and clouded. He wants to reach out and do something to help her, anything to make her smile but he doesn't. He can't.

So he stands there, waiting and watching until she turns around. She wants to make sure the little girl is alright but she won't go and meet Organa, even though the ex-senator would welcome her. He knows that there is a brother, she let it slip only once in a dream, crying out that she wouldn't harm Luke.

He wonders if Luke is with Him, if He is keeping Luke safe. He feels some resentment for the child, if that was what kept her away from Him. She misses Him, more than she misses Anakin or Yoda. Maybe not more than Windu. She talks about the others, occasionally she would mention them but never Him.

He's glad that she finally trusts him enough to let herself see the girl with him there. She doesn't say much, or tell him who the child is but he can guess. She is the spitting image of her mother. He hopes her brother is not as much like his father. If he thought about it he could find Luke, but he won't. He has the one person he wants only a few feet away.

He watches the shadows as they make their way back to their ship, back out into the loneliness of space. She makes no move to put in a destination. They have no rumours to lead them anywhere. He waits, watching her try to keep her face neutral.

She does it well now, he thinks she always has done. Keeping her anger and hurt buried underneath laughter. That's how she could turn so serious so quickly and back as if it was nothing. She doesn't use smiles to hide her pain now, just a cold hollow mask that lets only him know there's something wrong. There's always something wrong, there has been for five years. Eventually she sighs, pulling her long limbs up to her chest. She doesn't look like a Jedi now. He doesn't feel like he's looking at one.

He doesn't ask where to go, he just waits for her. He'd wait forever if she needed him to and always he wouldn't say a word.

"I want to go home, Cody," she says quietly and he knows it's a bad idea but he puts in the coordinates anyway. There's nothing left there now, just ruins and dust. Everything she loved is gone. There's no one there to welcome her but enemies. Still, he would give her anything she asked for and he would keep her safe. If she wanted to walk among the ruins for a while then he would take her.

It's only when she pulls his hands away from the controls that he realises she didn't mean there. Home for her was gone and she wasn't stupid enough to go back. He watches her change their course to an outpost and he can see it in the brief flash of her eyes.

Her home is on a distant planet, one she has been to only once. Her home is where He is, watching over Luke. Seeing the girl was her substitute, her way of being closer to the one guarding the other child.

He watches the stars go by and wishes he could take her home.


End file.
